ragmondo's comments

I just put together an Android App to display physical merchants that accept bitcoin. Yes I agree the data is a bit sparse right now but I am populating it as I find lists of merchants (and you can also submit your own business if you want). The app is here : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ragmondo

depending on what you have and where you are - try this website I knocked together to answer the eternal question "how do I get bitcoins" : http://bcfxer.appspot.com/

That's exactly what I thought. Apart from the person who takes your TV to the pawnshop charges you for taking it a 10% commission "in case it's worth less by the time it gets there" but with no refund if it's worth more. The frustrating thing for me is that ... it's just "too simple" . Hell I think I'm going to start a website luxury-cars-for-bitcoins.com and see if any suckers want to sell out.

I was going to say exactly the same thing. If your website is selling twitter bootstrap themes, chances are you need to put some effort into your theme.

If it's an intro page, a FAQ, a contact page and it's aimed at people who don't give a shit about if it looks like 1000 other websites then there's nothing wrong with that.

1) Do something 2) Tell people 3) Iterate

Sometimes you can swap over 1+2. Do not get hung up about not using the standard theme just because 0.1% of your visitors might recognise where it's from. Are they your target customers ?

but ... does it blend ?

exactly. I am in the same era as you and unfortunately haven't managed to hook facebook or google to hire me so my day consists of making the most out of the shit I am served each and every day. You know that 3 line shell script that accounts only needed to run once a year ? Yes that migrated into an 20,000 line perl module that HAS TO run every night without fail but nooooo do they want to (pay to) re-engineer it ? No. Because the customer would not benefit.

The most fun I have at work now is "try to get the most audacious python module through the firewall and then get it approved by the project manager as they have absolutely no clue about what I do".

Sorry kids but unless you make it (and make it big)... that's you in ten years time.

If I am honest, I have got over the "OMG what's it written in?" stage. If it works and if the (time saving per run * the times I need to run it ) > time it would take to write it myself, then .. that's a success. Then.. move onto the next issue to get some project tasks done, contract renewed, kids fed, mortgage paid etc etc etc.

Hey nice work!

Hey there ! Congrats for getting it done. I'm sure you've probably thought about this already - but have you considered wiring it up to google talk or a few other IMs ? That way people can play it a bit more easily on their phone etc etc.

I like the wikipedia DNS text lookup - I work in a "firewalled" environment where the unices are only allowed DNS queries. If only wikipedia could provide central switchboard numbers in their text fields as well ...

Does anybody know if there is a command for creating an infinite stream of the character "y" + carriage return ?

ssssssh ! When proxying over DNS becomes mainstream, it'll be shutdown !!

ooh ooh ooh. Disclaimer: Plug for my app called "tonepush" coming up.

I wrote an app that allows you to change the ringtone on someone else's phone (think xmas tunes, valentine songs etc etc). Anyway, one of my users had this issue where his wife is expecting a kid and he always has his phone on silent at work, so I've extended the app so that if he enables a web password, she can log in, turn his phone off silent and then ring him.

Before you say it, no it's not for iPhone but for Android. It's called TonePush Beta. All feedback gratefully received.

Me too ! I held out and held out and held out and I think they even threw in 200 quid credit into the deal too after the streetcar-> zipcar takeover. I am a family chap and we used to be a 2 car house but that was just due to the occasional time where the missus was using the main car for work and we "needed" a 2nd car. I only use zipcar 10 times a year but it works well enough for me (apart from the nearest car being 2 tube stops away). I don't think Avis can rescind on this ??? I hope not anyway...

I would

1) Make the pages editable by trusted individuals but with your validation before any change goes live. Allow the authors to be credited (with links to their blogs, pages etc etc).

2) Why stop at cars? Find a domain "howdoesa???work" and subdir it off that - offer written credit to anybody who wants to add any large-ish content.

3) Put in some clever links to amazon etc so that if someone wants to buy a new car battery you might be able to nail som e affliate fees. Especially if they are on your page, have identified that they need a battery - why go back to the search bar when you have "click here for battery offers". I am suggesting keeping it "neat" though. Please don't start adding horrid looking ads disguised as CTA buttons.

4) Cut your mate into a %age so he's a good posterboy for digitising other content.

if his place looks nicer than mine, I'm going to clone it. Cue the "You wouldn't steal a car" brigade....

I disagree fundamentally with the message xkcd is saying here. Instagram, facebook, myspace etc all gained traction as basically setting up a website or wordpress site was just not practical at one time. They all give the impression that it's a practical and reasonable alternative. And that's what 99.9% of their users think.

And then of course the funding starts to dry up and the accountants start needing to see some hard $$$$ income. And that's when the ToS start to "adapt" to enable aforementioned sites to monetize "their" content. Oh didn't you know ? It's not your website after all. Sorry ! And thanks for getting your friends on board too !!

Case in point - the uk "contactpoint" database - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ContactPoint - a database mandated by MPs that should contains all information about every child under the age of 18. Anyone excluded? Yep you guessed it - MP's children.

Disclaimer: Self Plug. I wrote an app on Android that allows you to set your and other people's ringtones from your phone via searching soundcloud CC0 music ( ie almost no-rights-reserved). I'm demoing it tonight at "techhub" for anybody reading this in London. Oh it's called TonePush btw.

How do we know the guy downloaded his plan? It could have been anybody - a deputy, underling, hell, even the secretary that absolutely refused him access. It doesn't matter that the CEO was running a hedge fund, I guarantee you he knows how to type in "how much is my domain worth" into google to get a rough figure for it.

In my earlier and somewhat more flush years, I used to have a saying "just throw money at the problem until it goes away". And you know what.. it worked. Well .. until I ran out of cash that is. This is what this sounds like to me. Flying London to New York on the off chance to meet this guy? One would have been better off finding out what gym he's a member of, which bars he drinks at, where he shops etc one was that desperate. mini-rant over.

can't reply to a reply :-(